Rap`s Bad Rap

It`s A Raw But Vital Voice Of The Street

April 15, 1990|By Greg Kot, Rock music critic.

In the grand tradition of `50s shouters Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, outlaw rockers the Rolling Stones and Guns N` Roses, and heavy metal grand wizards Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne, rock `n` roll has a new villain. Its name is rap, and the wild seed planted by black youths in the South Bronx 15 years ago has sprouted into one of the most exciting, controversial and popular musical forms of the new decade, appealing not only to blacks but also to many white youths, as well. Rap artists such as Ice-T, Kool Moe Dee and Public Enemy sell hundreds of thousands of records, and L.L. Cool J, Run- DMC, Young M.C. and Tone Loc have sold millions.

One of every 10 records on the Billboard Top 100 album chart is by a rap artist, and one of every five on the black album chart.

``Kids are growing up in places like Boise, Idaho, who normally would never meet a black person, and they`re listening to rap records and watching

(rap on) MTV, and they`re growing up being able to relate to blacks,`` says Russell Simmons, chairman of Def Jam Records. Similarly, much of rap`s message to young blacks can be positive: anti-drug; anti-violence; anti-gangs.

Simmons is regarded as the Berry Gordy of rap, a man who has helped shape the images and music of rappers ranging from L.L. Cool J to Public Enemy in a manner akin to Gordy`s Motown empire of the `60s. Last year, artists on Simmons` label sold $25 million in records, making it the largest black-owned business in the music industry.

``Because of rap`s popularity, the black subculture is becoming part of Middle America,`` Simmons said, ``and that`s scary to many white people, especially parents who grew up not relating to blacks.``

Sure, ``parents just don`t understand,`` as D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince declared on their 2-million selling ``He`s the D.J., I`m the Rapper``

album of 1988. It`s a lament that`s as old as teenage rebellion itself, but it only scrapes the surface of how rap is shaking up America.

Rock `n` roll has always been about challenging accepted norms of propriety, of shaking up the status quo, of being the ``villain`` of society. Cultures advance and grow only when their limits are tested and pushed to another level of understanding, and rap is surely testing the limits of popular music in America today.

It has become a lightning rod for lobby groups such as the Parents Music Resource Center in Arlington, Va., which advocates that albums with objectionable lyrics carry a warning sticker.

Legislatures in 18 states last month were considering or already had passed legislation that would make it a crime for stores to sell records with offensive lyrics to minors, though many of the bills were recently withdrawn in light of the ongoing industry effort to standardize stickering on controversial products.

A shopkeeper in Sarasota, Fla., recently was arrested for selling an uncensored version of the album ``As Nasty As They Wanne Be`` by the rap group 2 Live Crew to an 11-year-old girl.

And the district attorney general for Williamson County, outside Nashville, recently issued an opinion that albums by 2 Live Crew and rappers N.W.A. appear to violate Tennessee obscenity laws.

The mainstream media`s sensational depiction of rap has helped fuel the censorship crusade. Typical of the way rap has been portrayed was a recent Newsweek cover story, which described the music as ``savage,`` ``ugly,``

``sullen,`` ``appalling,`` ``vile,`` ``revolting`` and ``repulsive.``

Indeed, rap is peppered with ``repulsive`` songs about murders and rapes; many are blatantly misogynistic, such as 2 Live Crew`s ``Me So Horny,`` which describes women in terms that wouldn`t befit a prostitute. California rappers N.W.A. (Niggers With Attitudes) bluntly urged black youths to ``(Expletive)

the police`` on their ``Straight Outta Compton`` album, and the best and most notorious rap group of them all, Public Enemy, was nearly broken by a yearlong controversy over the anti-Semitic comments made in an interview by their

``Minister of Information,`` Professor Griff, who has since left the group.

Yet to focus strictly on the least savory aspects of rap does a disservice to its creators and the larger black culture from which it emerged. Sure, rap is sometimes crude and offensive, stark and horrifying, but then so is life in the ghetto. At the same time, rap also is comical and sly, uplifting and celebratory, educational and unifying.

Last week, Public Enemy released a new album on Columbia/Def Jam Records whose very title defines what all the fuss is about: ``Fear of a Black Planet.`` And the face of Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav on the cover of today`s Arts section illustrates Simmons` point.